


You don't need to understand

by a_pocket_full_of_fancy_words



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Basically a superlong headcanon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1720895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_pocket_full_of_fancy_words/pseuds/a_pocket_full_of_fancy_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier doesn’t understand love. </p><p>He knows it isn’t what Pierce gives him, but he doesn’t have anything else except Pierce’s occasional kindnesses and he really wants to be loved, so he accepts them all and tries to earn more. It’s a strange thing, for a machine, a weapon, to want love, but he thinks of it as something he’s lost. </p><p>Bucky Barnes knows love, and he thinks he understands it. </p><p>Steve is there to show him that he's wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You don't need to understand

The Winter Soldier doesn’t understand love. 

He knows it isn’t what Pierce gives him, but he doesn’t have anything else except Pierce’s occasional kindnesses and he really  _wants_  to be loved, so he accepts them all and tries to earn more. It’s a strange thing, for a machine, a weapon, to want love, but he thinks of it as something he’s lost. 

Bucky Barnes knows love, and he thinks he understands it. 

Understands enough to know that he doesn’t deserve Steve’s. Enough to know he let him down, shot him and broke his cheek and killed innocent people. 

He tries to run, tries to repel the love that Steve just can’t stop heaping onto him, like it’s bursting out after decades of building in his super soldier chest and he  _just can’t stop_. Whenever Steve catches up to him, the love on his face is unbearable.

But it isn’t up to Bucky or the Winter Soldier or to Steve: SHIELD, it’s shrunken remains, the shell that really was SHIELD and not HYDRA decides he’s too dangerous to keep running, and they bring him in. 

Steve is there when they take him and that hurts worst because  _dammit Steve can’t you see?_ Bucky doesn’t deserve their mercy or the cruelty of Steve’s love, he deserves to be put down. 

But he can’t do that to Steve, so he’s trapped. 

He thinks he knows what love is, because he loves Steve. 

He plays love, plays healing and recovery and Steve takes him home and he doesn’t try to run. It seems to work, because to some extent he does get better. But he still  _wants_  to run, and he doesn’t just mean lapping Sam.

And inevitably it happens, more than a year after his release, the moment comes, and he knows the memories Steve holds close, remembers their youth from another time, the touching, the kissing, love back when they both deserved it. 

He yields, gives in to pats on the back or Steve’s body brushing past him, gives in to letting Steve hold him sometimes if he’s upset, or if Steve is mourning their former lives, which he does often. 

But it happens, alone on Stark’s private jet on their way back from a conference on school history lessons in London, looking out of the window at sunset the plane chases round the globe. 

They’re standing close, close enough to touch and he’s used to that, used to Steve watching him in good lighting, used to that look in Steve’s eyes. He’s used to it now, and he was used to it for a long time before. It shouldn’t shock him, when Steve’s lips brush gently over his, but it does. 

He stumbles back against the bulkhead and slides down it. 

"Stop! Stop! You can’t! I can’t! I don’t…" Steve stares at him in alarm, but the floodgates are open and he keeps on going. "I don’t deserve it, this, any of it! You, or your—your love, I can’t accept it! I don’t deserve anything, I’m a murderer and a traitor-" 

Steve kneels down and puts a hand on his arm, ignoring the way he flinches at the touch. He thinks Steve is going to go through the list of reasons why it isn’t his fault, compiled by Steve and the Avengers and his own psychiatrist and repeated at him as though they can make him believe it. 

Steve slides his other hand under Bucky’s chin and guides him up to meet his gaze. He smiles sadly. “You just don’t get it do you Buck? I don’t care, about any of it. I wouldn’t even care if you’d actually done it. There  _is_  no good enough, no deserving. It doesn’t matter, I love you anyway.”

Bucky curls into him, his forehead pressed against the firm muscle on Steve’s stomach, warm through his cardigan. “But I… I don’t, I’m a bad…” He can’t finish, his chest hitching and his eyes filling with angry tears. He throws his arms around Steve and squeezes him hard enough that little Steve’s ribs might’ve cracked. 

But Steve isn’t little any more, and he only hugs him back. “I know Bucky. None of it’s real, those things you did.”

"It was real! I did them!" He shouts, muffled by his own thick sobs and by Steve’s belly. "I did it all."

Steve strokes his shoulders briskly. “No, Bucky, it’s all a lie. It’s all in your head that it’s all your fault, and even if it were I’d still be here and I’d still love you, cos I never could help that.”

"Okay," It isn’t okay, but he thinks he can pretend just a little while longer, like he did with the other recovering. He thinks he would like to. "I love you too,"

Steve kisses the top of his head, and when he’s finally ready to stand up and face the world, the sun is still setting over the east coast.

Bucky knows love, but he doesn’t understand a thing about it. But it's alright, because that’s always been Steve’s area, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> It's just a little drabble, but I hope you liked it :)


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